This policy brief focuses on the water sector in Harare, drawing on discussions around decision-making and climate resilience in the city under the FRACTAL project. It was funded by a grant from IDRCAfrican Climate Leadership Program (AfriCLP), the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and START’s Africa Global Environmental Change (GEC) project (administered by FRACTAL).

Lusaka Policy BriefsDecember 2018

Policy briefs were co-developed by FRACTAL and LuWSI (Lusaka Water Security Initiative) with contributions from a range of Lusaka city stakeholders. The policy briefs were presented to a high-level panel including ministerial representatives in Lusaka at the final Learning Lab in November 2018. They included briefs on Groundwater Pollution, Groundwater Levels and Flooding.

FRACTAL has funded a City Narratives Development Initiative in Gabarone, Blantyre and Harare. Narratives are useful tools, which enable specialist knowledge, such as that of climate scientists to be integrated with contextual knowledge, such as that of decision-makers. Researchers in Blantyre, Gaborone and Harare have developed future narratives for a particular sector in their city for the year 2040. Climate scientists will validate these narratives in terms of plausible climate futures.

Water scarcity was identified during the Learning Labs as a burning issue. This second City Dialogue therefore focussed on the issue of management of water in the Greater Maputo region and also considered the decision-making process.

At this, the third, engagement with stakeholders in Windhoek, the FRACTAL team used the climate risk narratives as a tool to open up conversations about climate-related issues. The bigger issues that were drawn out included water and urban development.

Under the FRACTAL umbrella, START funded a project looking into Windhoek’s water security. UJAMS Waste Water Treatment Plant (UWWTP) was used as a case study to investigate governance and policy analysis in relation to water security in Windhoek. The study revealed the different actors that were involved in discussions and decision-making around water supply to industry, pollution from industry and the need to find diverse alternatives to the water insecurity issues leading up to the establishment of UWWTP. An analysis of the Water Management Plan for City of Windhoek 2017 and also the Transformational Strategic Plan (2017-2022) the city’s policies revealed only limited mainstreaming of climate change related issues despite Namibia’s introduction of a Climate Change Policy, Strategy and Action Plan.

The FRACTAL team held a second learning lab in Maputo in May. Issues that were opened up for discussion included water shortages and the vulnerability of coastal communities and infrastructure to climate change related events.

In partnership with FRACTAL, the University of Namibia and the City of Windhoek hosted a Transformational Leadership on Climate Change training on 18th-19th April 2018. The training aimed to equip decision-makers with knowledge that will allow them to move away from the ‘business as usual’ way of decision-making, a requirement for the development of climate resilience cities.

Climate risk narratives for LusakaApril 2018

FRACTAL’s climate research team, led by researchers at the MET Office Hadley Centre and the University of Cape Town’s Climate Systems Analysis Group, has developed climate risk narratives for the city of Lusaka. They were presented at a training session and were generated using climate modelling tools. The notes from the climate training session are available here.

The risk narratives for Lusaka show three possible future scenarios.

Climate risk narratives for Maputo April 2018

FRACTAL’s climate research team, led by researchers at the MET Office Hadley Centre and the University of Cape Town’s Climate Systems Analysis Group, has developed climate risk narratives for the city of Maputo. The risk narratives show three possible future scenarios.

FRACTAL’s climate research team, led by researchers at the MET Office Hadley Centre and the University of Cape Town’s Climate Systems Analysis Group, has developed climate risk narratives for the city of Windhoek. The risk narratives show three possible future scenarios. They have also developed a Future Climate Impacts Infographic.

This research was funded by the SysTem for Analysis, Research and Training (START) through the Global Environmental Change (GEC) Programme. The research team included Prof John Mfune, Prof Lawrence Kazembe, Dr Ndeyapo Nickanor and Mr Gerhard Iiputa (University of Namibia (UNAM)), Dr Earl Lewis (UNAM Multidisciplinary Research Centre) and Mr Johannes Sirunda (NamWater).

The Windhoek Second Learning Lab took place on 31st October 2017 at Heja Lodge with 40 participants in attendance. This Learning Lab was focused on City of Windhoek Officials. It aimed to raise awareness about the proposed City of Windhoek’s Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan, which is being led by the City’s Division of Environmental Management.

The Chinhoyi University of Technology (CUT) research project title is “Water and energy system, urban governance and decision-making in Harare” and the University of Namibia (UNAM) research project is titled “Water Security in Windhoek: governance, water demand and supply, and livelihoods in the context of urbanization and climate change”. In August 2017, Harare stakeholders visited Windhoek to learn about both passive and active adaptation management strategies of Windhoek to compare the risks and vulnerabilities in the energy and water sector with Harare. This report provides a summary of activities that were undertaken during the Harare-Windhoek exchange visit.

The second Lusaka learning lab took place in June 2017. This lab followed on from this first, during which burning issues were identified. The second lab provided an opportunity to share feedback on some activities that had stemmed from the first learning lab, and resulted in the development of four city-based thematic groups to identify knowledge gaps.

The first Maputo Learning Lab was held 06-07 March 2017 at the Radisson Blu Hotel & Residence in Maputo. The meeting was attended by approximately 30 representatives from government entities, foreign and international NGOs, scientific entities, civil society, among others. Environmental problems caused by climate change and variability in the municipality were presented and the possible solutions thereof discussed as well as existing projects and programmes. This report covers the learning lab activities.

The first Windhoek City learning lab, which took place on 14 &15 March 2017, brought together stakeholders from a variety of organisations with the objective of framing relevant “burning issues” that would become the foci (pilot studies) for FRACTAL in Windhoek. This report covers the learning lab activities.

The city dialogue was a follow-up engagement from the learning lab, which was held in September 2016. At the learning lab, climate change issues were discussed with various stakeholders from the water, energy and food sector. At this event, stakeholders in Lusaka called for continued dialogue on climate change and water issues in the city. This dialogue brought together researchers and practitioners in the field of water and climate change from Zambia and South Africa.

The training that was carried out in January 2017 was conceptualized within the FRACTAL project, which has the main goal of integrating relevant climate information into city level decision making. The opportunity to provide this training was identified by Brenda Mwalukanga, the embedded researcher in Lusaka.

As part of the planned activities in the FRACTAL project for Lusaka, the inception workshop was held on 6th September 2016 to engage stakeholders working in the water and energy sectors in the City of Lusaka. This was followed by the first learning lab session on 7th September 2016 to discuss the burning issues within the City of Lusaka around the energy and water sector. This report covers both the inception workshop and learning lab activities.

About

FRACTAL aims to advance scientific knowledge about regional climate responses to human activities and work with decision-makers to integrate this knowledge into climate-sensitive decisions at a city-regional scale. FRACTAL works across disciplines in the scientific community, fostering strong collaboration between researchers, city government officials and key decision-makers in southern Africa.